Office Productivity Alternatives: Low Adoption Numbers Don’t Tell The Full Story

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My colleague Phil Karcher completed some nice research into the state of Microsoft Office alternatives recently. I'll share a couple of the highlights here.

Competitors to Microsoft Office receive plenty of attention in the blogosphere these days. Whether it's Google announcing a new mobile or social feature in Docs; Zoho a new API partner; or the recent buzz around the future of Open Office without Oracle -- it's natural to wonder how much traction these applications are getting with corporate IT.

Open Office has a global presence, although predominantly in government and education. Google Apps for Business has a growing list of customers, although many are using Gmail, not Docs. Overall, alternatives' take of the office productivity pie -- particularly in large enterprises -- is still very small.

Yet, we hear from many organizations considering or piloting them. In fact over a third of respondents to our March survey of IT decision makers with influence over the productivity toolkit claim to be "actively looking at" or "piloting" alternatives. So why does adoption remain so paltry?

Read moreCategories:

• Google Apps
• Microsoft Office
• Office Productivity
• Zoho

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